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“Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.” ― Robert Silverberg Back outdoors again, in the midst of a January thaw, too much of a thaw, actually. As I set out on the trails, expecting ice, which I was prepared for, I was faced with deep, slushy, wet snow, tough to walk in and impossible to grip,… Read More
“The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” ― John Ruskin The last week of December, 2016 was simply stunning. A soft, continuous snowfall had blanketed the world around me in pure white. Snow stacked up on objects that, surprisingly, bore its weight. Such was the case with this Staghorn Sumac in the meadow just north of my home. I decided a mid-morning walk with my camera… Read More
“It would seem from this fact, that man is naturally a wild animal, and that when taken from the woods, he is never happy in his natural state, ’till he returns to them again.” ― Benjamin Rush A brief post today of a digital painting I recently made of the cedar forest near Whitevale, Ontario. Despite the cold temperatures, warm sunlight glows from within the forest.
Nikon D800 Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD @ 200 mm 1/100 sec, f/5.0, ISO 100 For more images like this, please visit my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EdLehming or my website (some images available for purchase) http://www.edlehming.com
This is what froth below a local waterfall looks like when it freezes. Nikon D800 Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD @ 200 mm 1/40 sec, f/11.0, ISO 200 For more images like this, please visit my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EdLehming or my website (some images available for purchase) http://www.edlehming.com
“Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness.” ― Mary Oliver This will be my final post for 2016. My year ends much as it began, on the local trails, camera in hand. Today, I hiked about 6 km on snow packed trails, not meeting another hiker. The trek began bright but hazy and mild and ended… Read More
“And just because you turn out differently than everyone’s imagined you would doesn’t mean that you’ve failed in some way. A person who goes to med school because his entire family is full of doctors might find out that what he really wants to be is an artist instead.” ― Jodi Picoult Here’s another image from yesterday’s hike. I’m always impressed at how some plants hang on to their leaves when neighbouring… Read More
Time spent alone, not lonely; Untrodden trails, my footsteps, singular; Unspoiled, for my eyes alone; Newness, freshness; Never seen before, yet fleeting; Nature surrounds me, and astounds me; I am renewed. – Ed Lehming A surprising splash of colour in a predominantly white landscape. I finally had the opportunity to get back on the trails today. We had a few days of unsettled weather, including some freezing rain, a particularly unwelcome visitor for… Read More
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” ― Edith Sitwell This image, made on the same day as yesterday’s post, this view of the beech lined trails of one of the East Duffins Headwaters trail system, near Uxbridge, Ontario, is a testament to the beauty that can still be experienced in… Read More
“December is full of the beauty of Light and love we can bring into our life.You can chose to be stressed or you can choose to let the small stuff go and be peaceful this Holiday season. It really is a choice you make.” ― Eileen Anglin As I said earlier this week, it looks like I’ve gone to the birds. I’m pretty much a photo-opportunist and tend to move back and forth between… Read More
“…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.” ― Mark Nepo This past Saturday was ‘bird day’ on our backyard. The yard filled with chickadees, wrens, juncos, blue jays, and cardinals. I put a terra cotta flower pot base on our barbeque to see if I could attract a few of them closer to the window. I did not… Read More
“In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.” ― Robert Lynd Our recent heavy snowfall has brought with it an abundance of birds seeking food, reminding me to fill the feeders. Today, our mulberry was filled with Juncos, dozens of them. They are strange little birds, as they will not go to the feeders, but rather, wait below it to gather up whatever the chickadees,… Read More
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ― W.B. Yeats This image was made yesterday morning, during the walk I mentioned yesterday. A little trace of soft, indirect sunlight brightens up the tree, warming up a cold December morning. I only made a few photos that day, though I was surrounded by a winter wonderland. That is something I have experienced a few other… Read More
“Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder–no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.” ― Candace Bushnell Today, a winter abstract. What caught my attention in this scene was the splash of brilliant red from the Red Osier Dogwoods that grow along the path, against the bright snow. The photo was made mid afternoon,… Read More
“You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there–the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no… Read More
“The yellow glistens. It glistens with various yellows, Citrons, oranges and greens Flowering over the skin.” ― Wallace Stevens Good bye, for the season, yellow. Now that December has arrived, there are simply no more traces of bright, sunshine yellow. In autumn, the leaves progressed from crimson, to pinks, oranges and browns, and through it all, there was always a trace of yellow. Be it from birch, maple, or tamarack, there was… Read More
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” ― Anne Bradstreet After what started off as a gorgeous March, with above normal temperatures and bright sunshine, things changed mid-month, and we got into a cycle of cold days, snow flurries, and some freezing rain. This turned the nice dry trails back to a mix… Read More
“One of the reasons there are so many terms for conditions of ice is that the mariners observing it were often trapped in it, and had nothing to do except look at it.” ― Alec Wilkinson As winter transitioned into spring and the light coating of snow melted on the lakes, rivers and ponds in the area, some very interesting effects emerged, that I had not previously noticed. Perhaps it’s due to the… Read More
“By March, the worst of the winter would be over. The snow would thaw, the rivers begin to run and the world would wake into itself again. ― Neil Gaiman Bubbles, trapped in ice, glow beneath the icy waters of the spring thaw, like a wraith, lit by some inner glow. Mid-February this year brings an early and rapid thaw. Cold water flows with life over frozen creeks, softening the shapes trapped below, beckoning… Read More
“We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another’s vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.” ― Alan Moore Winter wears on, some days are bright and clear and others dark and dreary. Yet, through it all, nature lives on and builds crystal sculptures on frames of wood, grass, and stone. At the right time of day, the sun… Read More
“Look at all the things around you, the immediate world around you. If you are alive, it will mean something to you, and if you care enough about photography, and if you know how to use it, you will want to photograph that meaningness.” – Paul Strand I am reminded daily that I live in a living world. That world envelops me, nourishes me, sustains me. My eye picks up on subtle colours,… Read More
Elegant in it’s simplicity? Apparently, someone had been throwing rocks onto the ice, hoping for a breakthrough? I returned a few days later to find dozens of rocks littering the ice surface. It turns out that the frost pushed them from an adjacent cliff and the rolled across the ice, coming to rest some distance from their source. Things are not always as they seem. Perhaps this situation is a combination of… Read More
“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” – Walt Whitman Like stars in a dark sky, these maple keys glowed against a shadowy forest. Lit by a late afternoon sun that seemed to spark some inner light, more than just the sunlight itself, these dried Manitoba Maple keys mesmerized me. I stood for a while, just enjoying this scene and considering ways to photograph it in a way… Read More
“Every moment and every event of a man’s life on earth plants something in his soul” – Thomas Merton It’s the simple pleasure of walking by a group of dried flower stalks and seeing something wondrous in them. Among the winter kill, these plants, though dead as well, refuse to lay down. Instead, they stand along the shores, nearly six feet tall, enduring the elements like some wild sentinels. Though cold winds blow, snow… Read More
“I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy” – Anais Nin It is a joy to experience, at the deeper level, some of the scenes I come across in my journey through life. Places my feet have travelled many times, at once become magical with the addition… Read More
The photo title says it all. An image of a pine tree reflected in an ice puddle on the trail. Here we are, early February and much of the scant snowfall we’ve had has melted off, running into creeks or pooling in icy puddles. The light this day was wonderful and lit the pines up with a soft glow. It was this ‘glow’ that attracted me to look closely at the puddle and… Read More
The title is a bit misleading, as the water is not frozen. I took the word frequencies from the delicate ripples in the water and the effect they had on the reflection. The image is actually inverted and I was debating leaving it that way. However, the composition I was envisioning is better communicated this way. You can see a little hint of the shoreline, still coated in ice and snow. The… Read More
A challenging composition. Part of the ‘trick’ to capturing the motion of water is to create a time exposure based on the speed of the water and the light available. I tend to do most of these earlier in the day, or late afternoon, when the sun is soft and indirect. Last week I found myself, mid-day, looking at these wonderful scenes of water rushing past icy shores and trying to figure… Read More
The words “Seeing the extraordinary in everyday places.” has become a mantra for me. It resonates through my entire being. I’ve said before that I can’t seem to turn it off and would not want to. As I walk the streets or hike the forest trails, I am able to see beauty almost everywhere. So, why would I want to turn that off. It becomes my connection with my Creator, a… Read More
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